Who’s the favorite for the 2011 BCS National Title Game?

Yep, easy logic would land any marginally informed college football fan at the Alabama Crimson Tide.

A repeat doesn’t seem too unlikely seeing as freshman running back Trent Richardson, redshirt junior quarterback Greg McElroy, coach Nick Saban and yes, Heisman winner sophomore running back Mark Ingram all return.

But of the entirety of the rest of the Football Bowl Subdivision, who would be be next in line?

Well I’m here to tell you that you shouldn’t count out Boise State.

Yes, the very same Boise State of the Western Athletic Conference,  Fiesta Bowl Statue of Liberty and Battle of BCS-Buster fame. In years past, the best the Broncos could possibly hope for was a BCS bowl bid, but this year might just be a little different. First let’s look at the Broncos non-conference opponents:

vs. Virginia Tech (Sept. 6th)
vs. Wyoming (Sept. 18th)
vs. Oregon State (Sept. 25)
vs. Toledo (Oct. 9)

Then they’ll have an eight-game Western Athletic Conference schedule, during which they went 8-0 last season. Not too tough a schedule, right?

Now think about where they might start the season in the polls… In all likelyhood top-10 if not top-five on the strength of their Fiesta Bowl victory over TCU at the end of last season and the fact that they’re returning almost all of their starters from last year, including quarterback Kellen Moore.

So a couple losses combined with moving slowly up the rankings with wins over very beatable teams, plus the always friendly computer rankings for an unbeaten team, and what might we have? An undefeated Boise State team playing for the BCS National Championship Game.

Yes you heard me right. The Boise State Broncos could very easily make their way to the National Title Game next year, and all they would really need is to go undefeated and have three or four teams lose ahead of them. If the past few seasons are any indication, more than three or four preseason top-five teams are going to lose at least once before the season is up meaning that Boise has a legitimate shot.

Forecasters and gamblers alike also like this proposition, as Boise State has been installed as the second favorite to win the BCS national title, at 12/1 odds according to bodog.com.

Could this finally be the year? Its still far far away, but this just gets you to thinking….

Recently, it has come to light that many of the BCS conference are looking to expand and realign.

The consequences of this move could have ripple effects around the college football landscape and have immediate and large effects on the Bowl Championship Series.

During the past few seasons, the Atlantic Coast Conference, Southeastern Conference and Big 12 Conference have all been able to hold conference championship game because they all have 12 member schools. By the rules set out by the BCS, only conferences with 12 teams are allowed to hold conference championship games.

Teams from conferences that don’t have 12 teams have cried foul about the rule, saying that the ability of schools of these three conferences to hold a championship game and give one team another quality win gave those three conferences a better shot at securing a BCS National Title game bid, because of the effect of a final-week game on the human and computer elements of the BCS rankings.

And sure enough, this season saw the winner of the SEC Championship Game and the Big 12 Championship Game get bids to the national title game, a circumstance that was almost preordained before the season even started.

Now it has been revealed that the Big 10 and Pac 10 are both looking into securing enough teams to hold their own conference championship game. The reasons behind the expansion reach further than simply a boost in the BCS, as both are looking at gaining an upper hand in television rights negotiations, but the fact remains the same. Five conferences with 12 teams, and therefore five conference championship games would have a major impact on the BCS.

No longer would the Big 10 have the convience of waiting for good teams to loose and submit Ohio State to the BCS National Title game for all those years in the mid 2000’s. No longer would the Pac-10 be robbed of the chance to submit USC to the National Title game because they played a 6-6 UCLA on their final weekend, and not a 9-3 California or 8-4 Oregon State.

The Big 12 and SEC would no longer hold an upper hand on the final weekend, and the computers and even the human elements would have to notice. And this would change things drastically.

And with the current revolt in Congress and the Senate against the BCS, this move towards change could only further confuse what could be a huge opportunity for big change in the college football landscape and the way that the Football Bowl Subdivision crowns its champion.

Oh what could have been.

We waiting weeks for this weekend to come, hoping that it would deliver the drama and intrigue that the rest of the season was missing, and it did not dissapoint.

Texas, playing in what was supposed to be a cakewalk of a Big 12 Championship Game instead needed instant replay on the clock and a 46-yard field goal that just sneaked in the uprights to clinch victory and a likely shot at the national title game.

Alabama and Florida were supposed to play in the season’s most intriguing game. Instead what we got was an Alabama romp, blowing out the Gators and likely clinching their shot at the national title.

So it’s likely that we’ll get that SEC Champ vs. Texas game when the last BCS standings are released tomorrow.

But it could have been much different.

If Texas had lost, we would have entered one of the messiest final BCS rankings in the system’s history, but we avoided that by the slimmest of margins.

So here’s our reality for tomorrow, and what we know so far:

• We know that Oregon and Ohio State will make the Rose Bowl game and continue the Big Ten vs. Pac-10 rivalry.
• We know that Cincinnati will receive a BCS bowl bid, we just don’t know from where.
• We know that Georgia Tech is going to get a bid to the Orange Bowl with their victory over Clemson in the ACC Championship Game, as the bowl and the conference have ties that allow for the conference champion to receive an automatic bid there.
• We are almost 100% sure that Alabama and Texas will meet for the national title game after winning every game they needed to in order to get to the biggest game of the season.
• We can also be pretty sure that Florida will receive a Sugar Bowl bid despite losing the SEC Championship Game, as the Sugar Bowl will likely want an SEC team despite the SEC Champ going to the National Title Game.
• Another thing that’s guaranteed: TCU will get a BCS bowl bid due to the BCS’s automatic bid qualifying policy for non-BCS schools.

So the six BCS conference bid are set, and two at-large bids are also nearly set in stone.

That leaves two openings. Iowa, Penn State, Boise State, Virginia Tech, LSU and BYU will all likely be eligible tomorrow.

It seems like the Big Ten teams that trail behind Ohio State; Iowa and Penn State, will be one of the at-large selections. The other selection cannot be a Big Ten team, but could be any of the other teams mentioned.

If logic holds up, Boise State would receive that bid, and we at BCS Know How project that they will in fact get that final bid.

Here’s a look at what the BCS standings might look like when they are released tomorrow:

Projected BCS Standings December 6th

We’ve been waiting all year for this weekend, and finally after thirteen compelling weeks of college football action, its finally here.

Four games will decide conference champions, and many others will be important in bowl positioning for a variety of teams.

Obviously most important is the matchup that’s been anticipated basically since day one of the college football season, Alabama vs. Florida for the SEC Championship.

The winner of this game not only gets an automatic bid to the BCS as the SEC Champion, will also get a bid to the national title game. The loser won’t fare all that bad, as they will likely receive one of the at-large BCS bids to the Sugar Bowl.

Three other games will decide conference champions.

The ACC Championship Game will feature Georgia Tech and Clemson. Depending on who might or might not lose in the rest of the country on Saturday, this is likely the decider for the only BCS bid the ACC will receive.

The Big 12 Championship Game will feature Nebraska and Texas. Texas has spent the entire season with the knowledge that a perfect season would mean a berth in the national title game, and they are one win from that. A Cornhusker victory would open up a huge can of worms, but the Longhorns would likely receive an at-large bid if Nebraska shocks them.

A de facto Big East Championship will take place on Saturday between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Its also likely that a loss for either team would relegate them to non-BCS land, but a Bearcat victory combined with a Longhorn loss would make things a little interesting.

Cincinnati has crept very close to No. 4 TCU in weeks past, and if Texas loses, there is a possibility that a team that finishes its BCS conference schedule undefeated could jump the idle Horned Frogs.

Even less likely, but still possible, is the idea that the BCS National Title Game could be an SEC Championship Game rematch. This would require Pittsburgh and Nebraska to win, and the human polls to show absolutely no confidence in the Horned Frogs, keeping the Tide/Gators ahead of TCU in the polls and the BCS.

Undefeated No. 6 Boise State is likely to feel disappointed after this weekend if they can complete a perfect schedule with a victory over New Mexico State. Even a huge victory over the Lobos (3-9) would not equal a national title berth for the Broncos, but they need to win to hold hope for a BCS bowl bid, for which TCU virtually locked in for.

With Oregon and Ohio State already sitting pretty with BCS bowl bids clinched, this weekend will be all about matching the Ducks and Buckeyes, and is sure to be exciting throughout.

The BCS rankings and bowl matchups will be released Sunday at 8 PM eastern and will make everything official. Until that time stay tuned to BCS Know How for all the latest BCS news.

We went into this weekend hoping for some upsets, and while we got a couple of interesting ones, it didn’t change a whole lot at the top of the BCS standings.

The upsets came in the final weekend of November, and the final full weekend of college football action as this unusually upset-free season comes to a close.

Georgia Tech – already having secured a spot in the ACC Championship Game – and knowing a BCS bowl bid is the best they could do, overlooked a very game Georgia team and fell to the Bulldogs in the rivalry game.

In Bedlam, Oklahoma State, who had a lot more riding on the game than Oklahoma did – looking for a BCS bowl at-large bid – slipped terribly, not able to score a single point and falling to the Sooners 27-0.

No. 9 Pittsburgh, who had been looking towards a Big East showdown with the Cincinnati Bearcats, obviously overlooked the Backyard Brawl, and fell to West Virginia on a last second field goal.

Texas and Alabama had some trouble finding victory over the long weekend, but neither actually lost. No harm, no foul, and the SEC Championship as a national semifinal holds true for a second consecutive year, as Florida and Alabama will face off to see who gets to represent the conference in the national title game. The loser of the game, although not happy, will likely still see a Sugar Bowl bid in their future.

Surprisingly, five of the six BCS conferences will hold “conference championship” games, although only three (Big 12, ACC and SEC) actually have official games with such a name.

The Pac-10 and Big East will feature matchups that will decide the conference’s regular season title winners and BCS bowls bids after this weekend’s action was not enough to decide either crown.

The Pac-10 will feature a Thursday Civil War between Oregon and Oregon State, the winner likely headed to the Rose Bowl. The Big East will see an undefeated Cincinnati and the aforementioned Pitt face off for the Big East crown.

But that is all the future, for right now all we can do is project this week’s BCS standings, which will be released after the slate of FOX NFL games tomorrow on the OT show:

Projected BCS Standings November 29th

Ah rivalry week.

Such possibility, such excitement.

But if the past few weeks have been any indication, this might just be the most boring rivalry week in the history of college football.

The season has been just bereft of upsets, and there’s no good reason to think that this weekend will be different, but we can still hold out the smallest bit of hope.

This year’s Thanksgiving Day game, Texas-Texas A&M could either be a great sign or a sign of the same old same old for this year.

In beating the Aggies by 10, the Longhorns clinched an undefeated regular season, but had a bunch of trouble doing it.

Maybe this means that other favorite will have more trouble and falter down the stretch, namely this weekend.

On the other hand, the Longhorns won.

And so, maybe this rivalry weekend will just be another in a long line of upset-free weekends, but three are certainly chances scattered around the college football scene this weekend.

No. 2 Alabama travels to Auburn for the Iron Bowl, which is always a good chance for one team to make their season with just one victory, this year that would be the result of a Tiger victory over the Tide.

No. 1 Florida welcomes Florida State in a toned-down version of this instate rivalry, seeing as the recent misfortunes of the Seminoles have the teams going in very different directions this season.

BCS hopefuls No. 7 Georgia Tech and No. 12 Oklahoma State face off against instate rivals as well, Georgia and Oklahoma respectively, and could falter here late in the season.

The Big East – suddenly the best conference race in the country other than the Pac-10 – all three of its top teams in action on Friday, including West Virginia and Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl.

Overall this rivalry week’s got some potential, and by this point in the season, we’d take just about anything to get some excitement with this season already.

Enjoy.

Sure, Thanksgiving isn’t until next week, but given the opportunity, the nation’s best teams feasted on much weaker opponents on Saturday – meaning yet another week will pass without any change at the top of the BCS.

The top four of the BCS took on four teams on Saturday with a combined 19 wins.

The team with the most wins of the four was an FCS team.

And Florida, Alabama, Texas and TCU reacted appropriately, pasting their opponents in all four games and keeping all of their hopes alive for a national title chance.

Little BCS noise was made at all this weekend, with the top team to lose being the LSU Tigers, who were already counted out of the BCS this year, seeing as though they would be a third SEC team at the party that could only allow two SEC teams in.

In fact, the most important news when it comes to the BCS this weekend came from Clemson and Kansas State – two teams not even ranked in the top 20 – who were both able to secure spots in their respective conference championship games.

Texas also clinched their spot in the Big 12 Championship Game against Kansas State with their win over Kansas, but that spot was long assumed to be going to the Longhorns anyways.

The Pac-10 title picture is now clear, as Oregon State and Oregon are the only teams with chances left to make it to the Rose Bowl after Oregon defeated Arizona and Cal beat Stanford to knock both teams out of contention.

With very little change at the top, the BCS again is going to look pretty familiar tomorrow, but there will be change at the No. 8 position, as the shaky LSU team finally lost.

Without any polling information, here is a quick stab at what the BCS top 8 might look like when released after the first slate of NFL games are complete tomorrow:

Projected BCS Standings November 22nd

Maybe Oklahoma State needing its third-string QB to make sure Colorado didn’t pull the upset late Thursday night was a good sign.

At least, that’s what we’re hoping for.

Truth be told, this season has been full of close upset possibilities around the country. Top teams down late or in close games with unranked opponents. But rarely have any of these close contests panned out into full-blown upsets.

In fact, the top three teams in the country: Texas, Alabama and Florida, were all considered top-five teams at the beginning of the season, definitely a rare occurrence during these past few years.

Furthermore, this weekend doesn’t shape up to be a nail-bitter filled slate of Saturday games. But maybe, just maybe, the fact that a 3-8 team nearly beat a BCS bowl eligible Cowboys squad is a good sign for the underdog – and they’re definitely going to need all the help they can get.

Non of the top three teams are playing a ranked opponent this weekend, actually only Texas is playing a FBS school without a sub-.500 record in Kansas (5-5). Alabama takes the weekend off with FCS Chattanooga and Florida welcomes 3-7 Florida International to the Swamp.

Doesn’t look too good for a major upset, huh?

How about traditional rivalries? They always seem to hold a good chance of a big upset.

Ohio State – Michigan is this weekend, but from the looks of things, people aren’t paying much attention or looking for an upset.

Usually the long standing rivalry creates more of a buzz in the college football world, but this weekend, with Michigan needing a win just to get bowl eligible and Ohio State already locked into the Rose Bowl, it just doesn’t hold a lot of importance, and the upset potential is quite low.

No. 4 TCU might be the best chance for a top-four upset this weekend, but their trip to Wyoming for a conference matchup against a 5-5 team still doesn’t look too promising.

TCU and Texas have combined to go 20-0 this year, a revelation for Texas football, but with all the winning going on by the top teams, its unlikely that the BCS National title game will feature a Texas football dream – an all-Texas BCS National Title game – as TCU is likely to be left out if the favorites keep winning.

If the Horned Frogs have any hope at all, they’re going to have to start wishing for losses, and soon. Like starting tomorrow.

Overall, there are a few important matchups that you can find in the schedule this weekend that have some sort of BCS or bowl implications, but with no good chance of a huge upset anywhere on the scoreboard, it looks like just another ordinary weekend of college football in this kind of ordinary college football season.

But we can always hope, right?

To call this season of college football boring would be a terrible, terrible mistake.

To call this past weekend’s serving of college football boring – well that might be a pretty good assessment.

Another weekend goes by, and nothing seems to change in college football. In fact, this weekend, only one top ten team lost to an unranked opponent, No. 9 USC’s shocking home loss to Stanford.

Other than the Trojan egg laying at the LA Coliseum, favorites won out.

The most interesting storyline to come out of the weekend was probably that Ohio State claimed the first BCS bowl bid with their 27-24 overtime victory over Iowa. In clinching at least a share of the Big 10 conference title, the Buckeyes also hold the BCS bid tiebreaker, and will likely head to the Rose Bowl.

The weekend was supposed to be about a threat to TCU’s ascension to BCS glory. That didn’t exactly pan out.

Instead what we got was a really entertaining show from the Horned Frogs, enough that many might call for TCU to jump at least Texas in the next BCS standings. Will it happen?

Likely not, but expect the Horned Frogs to inch closer to the Longhorns in tomorrow’s BCS standings.

We’re inching closer to other BCS bowl bids filling up, especially in the ACC, where Georgia Tech clinched the ACC Coastal Division and a chance to win the conference’s bid for a likely Orange Bowl berth. Clemson is a step away from that game as well after CJ Spiller helped the Tigers win on Saturday.

In the Big East, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh both won, setting up an ultimate showdown on the regular season’s final weekend for the conference’s BCS bowl bid, if the two teams can make it there without a conference loss.

Texas, Alabama and Florida all continued their respective marches to their conference title games as well.

So the entire top eight won on Saturday, so tomorrow’s BCS will look mighty familiar to us all, except probably at the eighth spot, where Ohio State is likely to take over for LSU, who was pretty darn close to losing to Louisiana Tech on Saturday, and won’t find any help from the human element or the computer element for that surprisingly close result.

The Buckeyes on the other hand will get help in both areas for beating a previously adored Hawkeye team, especially in the computers.

Without any polling information, here is a quick stab at what the BCS top 8 might look like when released after the end of NFL action on FOX Sunday evening:

Projected BCS Standings November 15th

As far as bowl games go, the Armed Forces Bowl isn’t half bad.

Good name, late in the bowl season (December 31^st), ESPN coverage and two solid conference ties, the C-USA and Mountain West Conference.

Usually, the winner of the MWC would be headed to Forth Worth to play in this very worthy bowl game, but this year its just a little different for the non-BCS conference schools.

See this year, both TCU and Boise State (of the WAC) have good shots at making a BCS bowl, and for TCU to avoid a date in Texas on New Year’s Eve and head to a BCS bowl, this weekend’s match up with Utah is of the utmost importance.

The Horned Frogs have climbed all the way up the BCS standings in the last four weeks to No. 4, the highest ranked non-BCS school in the country. Where they sit now, TCU would be assured of a BCS bowl bid, but the Utes stand in their way.

A victory by Utah would likely give them the MWC conference title, and send them to either the aforementioned Armed Forces Bowl or the Humanitarian Bowl, but this week all they’re focused on is the Horned Frogs.

The Utes have been in just this situation in the past. In fact, last year an undefeated Utes team faced a game Horned Frogs squad with the chance for a BCS bowl bid for Utah on the line, and Utah prevailed, making its way to the Sugar Bowl. The Utes hope the favor is not returned to TCU.

This MWC showdown highlights a weekend of very important conference matchups.

As we come down the stretch of the college football season, for the teams not vying for BCS glory, these weeks will decide whether they go to a bowl, or sit at home and watch 68 other teams play one final game in one of the 34 bowls this season.

Also at stake this weekend is a Rose Bowl bid from the Big 10. Iowa, who had been coasting to the Big 10 conference title and a shot at the Roses, experienced their first loss last weekend. Now they face Ohio State, the winner likely to win the conference and a date in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.

The triumvirate ruling over college football this season – Texas, Alabama and Florida – all go on the road this weekend to weaker in conference opponents, looking to avoid upsets and put dampers on both their opponents in-conference and overall records.

The season winds down and bowl games begin to fill, crunch time for the nation’s best is approaching. This is when college football is at its finest, with the postseason on the line, and as much as you think you know about the season thus far may have absolutely nothing to do with what we could see in the coming weeks.

Those weeks start now.

Enjoy.